


You Help

by stellarfluid



Category: Hiccup Series - Cressida Cowell
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, this is self-indulgent as ALL HELL ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 09:18:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17505857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarfluid/pseuds/stellarfluid
Summary: Hiccup has a really bad nightmare. Toothless knows exactly what to do about it.





	You Help

**Author's Note:**

> HEEELLLOOO this is SUPER self-indulgent lol but i felt like writing smthn like it so here we are!
> 
> this isnt really much of anything, also, i mostly ended up using it to experiment with my writing style (i realized i used a lot of dashes and capitalization so i was like..... why not make that my style lol) to see if i could make it work. let me know what you think!
> 
> also this might be a little ooc..... im stll in the process of rereading these books so im not sure if im characterizing fishlegs and camicazi entirely correctly! so if im not, im sorry! i might come back and fix things up once m done reading the series. these r my kids and i'd hate to do them injustice.
> 
> ANYWAAAYY, thanks for reading, and have a lovely day :D!!!!

Toothless had been sleeping quite well, his little body where it belonged at the foot of Hiccup’s bed. Despite the fact that a king-bed came with Hiccup’s title of King, and the fact that this bed was big enough for Toothless to have plenty of space just for himself, he found that it was more comfortable sleeping just under Hiccup’s feet. That was where he slept for most of his life after all, and that’s the only place he felt safe enough to sleep at.

And there he slept soundly, lulled to sleep by the soothing sound of the Ticking Thing _tick-tick-tick_ ing the night away from the bedside table where Hiccup placed all the other Things at night, and the soft sound of Hiccup’s breathing. He was even having a particularly nice dream, when---

Hiccup kicked him.

Hiccup. KICKED. Him.

Hiccup had kicked _TOOTHLESS._

Toothless woke up and blinked. For a moment, he thought that he had imagined it --- there was no way Hiccup would be so cruel to kick poor little Toothless, after all they had been through…

But then he did it again.

Toothless was shocked --- APPALLED -- that Hiccup would do such a thing. He squirmed out from beneath Hiccup’s leg (the other had been moved, as it was the one that Hiccup had kicked him with, and had been resting against Toothless’ side) and began to march to Hiccup’s pillow to, ready to give him a piece of his angry dragon mind for _kicking_ him. How dare he!

However, as Toothless approached Hiccup’s face, his anger diminished a bit. Hiccup seemed to still be asleep. Maybe he hadn’t meant to kick Toothless, the small dragon thought. But he still did, and he interrupted Toothless’ lovely little dream, too, and he still needed to know that it was MEAN and UNFAIR of him, even if it was an accident.

Hiccup then made a strange sound and turned over in his sleep. And then Toothless wasn't mad at all anymore. Because if Hiccup was rolling around in his sleep, that meant he was having scary dreams.

He made another strange little sound, like a small, quiet whimper, and shuddered beneath his covers. One thing to note about being Hiccup's kingly bed is that he could have as many blankets as he wanted now, so the bed was actually quite warm, but still Hiccup shivered. His dream must have been really scary.

Toothless did what he thought was right.

 **“H-H-Hiccup,”** he called, keeping a close eye in his sleeping Master for any signs of distress. Nothing but another shudder. **“H-H-H-HICCUP.”** Hiccup made a whine-like noise and moved his arm slightly. Toothless huffed in exasperation, watching Hiccup scrunch up his face in response to whatever was presenting itself behind his closed eyes.

He began doing whatever he could to wake Hiccup up, feeling that Hiccup would rather be awake than having nightmares. Toothless yelled at him and licked his face, eventually getting him to mumble a bit and roll back over onto his back. Then Toothless walked around on his chest chanting, **“HICCUP.  M-M-MASTER. H-H-H-HICCUP. MAAASTEEEER!”**

And finally, after receiving a headbutt in the chin, Hiccup woke up. He blinked dazedly up at the ceiling. **“I-i-it’s about t-t-time,”** Toothless said firmly. Hiccup didn’t answer. He blinked again, his eyes unfocused and tired. **“H-Hiccup?”** Toothless asked. Still no reply. Toothless tilted his head to the side, about to ask Hiccup another question when Hiccup suddenly sat bolt upright, knocking little Toothless off of his chest and into his lap. Toothless squawked indignantly as he tumbled down, then called Hiccups name again, this time accusingly.

Hiccup was hazily looking around the room as if he didn’t know where he was or what was happening. Then he looked down at Toothless, and his eyes seemed to focus. And then his face crumpled, and he started to cry.

Toothless was shocked. His Master almost never cried. Hiccup had been through a lot of hardship --- constant terrors, horrors and overall bad times --- and Toothless had only seen him cry a few times. Toothless also knew that Hiccup NEVER cried over NIGHTMARES. Whatever he dreamt about must have been really bad…

Toothless couldn’t help but to panic. This never happened before. He didn’t want Hiccup to cry, but he REALLY didn’t know how to help. He had to think about it. He sat down on Hiccup’s lap and thought _really hard,_ trying to ignore Hiccup’s sobbing.

What did Hiccup do for Toothless when he was scared at night? Normally he would look around the room for anything scary and dangerous (but that wasn’t what Hiccup was afraid of --- at least, Toothless didn’t think so). He would get Toothless food (Toothless couldn’t _get_ to the food without help, that’s why Hiccup had to get it for him). And…

Nope, that was it. That was always enough to calm the little dragon down, as long as Hiccup was _very thorough_ with the search and got _exactly_ what Toothless wanted to eat.

Toothless was about to give up hope when he remembered one final thing.

When Toothless was sad or scared, Hiccup would say something soothing and scratch him behind the horns, telling him that everything would be okay. Toothless wasn’t good at being soothing. He had never really had to be. He didn’t even know what “soothing” even _was_ for humans.

But he knew two people who did.

As soon as this realization came to him he jumped up, looking at Hiccup excitedly. **“T-T-Toothless will help!”** he said. **“S-s-st-stay here!”** And then he flew off.

Toothless had his own Clever Little Plan. He knew that if anyone could cheer Hiccup up, it would be his human friends. And Toothless knew that the only way he could really _communicate_ with Hiccup’s human friends was through Stormfly, since she could speak Dragonese and Norse, and she could tell them what the problem was so they could help.

He flapped his way throughout the Castle of Tomorrow, going to the room where Camicazi was currently sleeping. He was honestly a bit proud of himself for knowing where the room was --- the castle was so BIG and he had only been in there a couple of times. But when he got there, he was met with a _little_ problem.

He couldn’t get the door open.

  **“STORMFLYYYYY,”** he whined, pounding and scratching on the door. **“S-St-StormFLLYYYY, Toothless n-n-needs HELLLLLP!”**

 Before long, he heard shifting on the other side of the door.

"What?” Camicazi's sleepy voice called. “Hello?”

Well, it wasn't Stormfly, but it was someone who could open the door. Toothless screeched at her, trying to communicate that he needed the door open.

 “Toothless???” she asked.

 **“Y-Y-YES!”** Toothless shouted. **“Let Toothless in! L-L-LET TOOTHLESS I-IN!”**

Toothless heard some shuffling sounds, and soon, Camicazi was opening the door. She had begun to ask “What's the matter?” when Toothless zipped past her to where Stormfly was sleeping. He then proceeded to wake _her_ up.

 **“Mmm, what is it?”** Stormfly asked, stretching her legs and flexing her talons.

 **“H-H-H-H-Hiccup had a s-s-scary dream,”** Toothless said frantically, **“n-n-needs his friends. Tell y-y-your master H-Hiccup needs h-h-his friends!”** Stormfly stretched out her wings, then flew to perch on Camicazi's shoulder. Camicazi yawned.

“What's he on about?” she asked, stretching herself.

“He said Hiccup had a nightmare,” Stormfly explained, “and that he needs his friends.” Camicazi froze.

“Really?” she asked Toothless, who nodded frantically. “Then what are we waiting for? Let's go get Fishlegs.” And then she was off.

 Toothless REALLY couldn't help but to be proud of himself. This was going smoothly. He followed Camicazi down to Fishlegs’ room, where she began pounding on the door and calling, “Fishlegs! Wake up, Fishlegs! Helloooo, Fishlegs? Heeeelllooooo!”

“Whassit?” Fishlegs mumbled, his voice muffled.

“Hiccup neeeeeds uuuuusss!” Camacazi said.

“...Why?”

“Toothless said he had a nightmare.”

“Really? He needs us because of a NIGHTMARE??”

“Yep!”

“Okay, I’m coming, let me get my glasses…”

 Before long, the two humans were heading to Hiccup’s room, Toothless flying frantically above their heads. The door to the room was open a bit widly from when Toothless had left. They could hear Hiccup before they even went in. He was still crying, but now it sounded like he was struggling to breathe.

Toothless went in before the others. His Master was laying on his side facing the door, gasping for breath, trembling with sobs. **“H-H-H-H-Hiccup,”** he called, **“I-I-I-I got your f-f-friends!”**

 Camicazi and Fighlegs had followed him in. Camicazi looked at him with a frown as Fishlegs began to slowly appoarch. “Hiccup?” Fishlegs asked, then swallowed hard.

Hiccup couldn’t answer. He gulped for air.

Toothless flew over and settled himself in front of Hiccup, leaning against Hiccup’s chest in an attempt to be of some comfort. Fishlegs knelt next to the bed. “Hiccup?” he whispered. Hiccup reached out and grabbed on to Fishlegs’ arm. He looked like he was trying to say something.

 _I can’t breathe,_ he was trying to say. _I’m scared and I can’t breathe._

Fishlegs thought. It really was great that HICCUP was one needing help, he thought sarcastically, because HICCUP would normally be the one to deal with this sort of thing. Fishlegs thought back to the Hooligan Village ages ago, when he would get anxious and upset about something stupid and not life-threatening --- when it WAS something life-threatening, like potential Sharkworms, it was a different story --- Hiccup would know exactly how to calm him down.

And Fishlegs remembered one of the ways he did it.

 “Hiccup! Hiccup,” he said, “I have an idea.” Hiccup looked at him, eyes wide and teary.

“Remember what you used to do for me?” Fighlegs asked. Hiccup did not. “Okay,” Figshlegs said, fidgeting a bit nervously, hoping this would go well. “Can you… tell me ten things you can see,” he said.

Despite the fact that tears were pouring from his eyes and he could barely breathe, he managed to give Fishleg’s a questioning look. “Look,” Fishlegs said, “when you had me do it way back when, I didn’t think it was gonna work, either. Try it.”

Just that seemed enough to get Hiccup’s breathing to slow down. He was still struggling for air, but he could at least say things between breaths now. “I--” he gasped “-- I can-- see-- you?” he began.

“All right, good, good!” Fishlegs said supportively.

“And C-Camicazi--” Camicazi smiled and waved “-- and Toothless--” he scratched Toothless behind the horns. “Do all the-- the Lost Things-- do they all just count as one… collective… thing?”

 It continued like that for a while, until Hiccup had found ten things to name (all the Lost Things HAD counted as one collective thing). By then, he was taking slow, shaky breath, and was sniffling a little. Fishleg’s idea had worked.

TOOTHLESS’ idea had worked.

 “What were you so worked up about?” Camicazi asked Hiccup, who was now hugging Toothless close and petting him, which was soothing for the both of them. Hiccup shrugged.

“I can’t even really _remember,”_ he admitted.

“What, so you were all freaked out about something you can’t remember?” she said.

“Oh, come off it,” Fishlegs said.

“Hey, I wasn’t trying to be RUDE!”

“No, don’t worry,” Hiccup smiled into Toothless’ back, looking at his best friends, “I know you weren’t. It’s weird.” He moved to lay his head back down. “I think-- it had something to do with me… messing something up? As King. And ruining everything. I think.”

“What do you mean?” Fishlegs asked. Hiccup sighed and shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think I just-- I’ve made a lot of mistakes and caused some bad things, right? I could do something like that again and destroy my own kingdom.” He frowned down at Toothless. “Or-- you know,” he added. Fishlegs and Camicazi knew.

“Being King is stressful,” Hiccup continued, “and while I know --- most of the time --- that I’m King for a reason, sometimes I wonder if there is somebody else that would be better for the job.”

 No one knew what to say.

 “Is there anything we can do?” Camicazi asked. “To help, I mean.” Hiccup smiled.

“You already guys have helped,” he told her. “You are helping. Being here with me helps. Letting me talk about it helps. I think… that’s all I need, I think.”

“Do you want us to stay?” Fishlegs asked.

“I… yes,” Hiccup said. He pulled Toothless with him as he moved to make room for his two friends to climb into the bed.

As everyone around him settled, Toothless couldn’t help but feel really, REALLY proud of himself. Because of him, Hiccup’s friends were able to make him feel better. Before he dozed off in Hiccup’s arms, he looked up at his Master and asked, **“D-d-d-did Toothless h-h-help?”**

 **“Yes, Toothless,”** Hiccup chuckled, **“you did. You’re a very good dragon.”**

**Author's Note:**

> :"") i would die for my children. i love them so much.
> 
> please leave feedback! i would like to know what others think of how i write. 
> 
> THANK YOU!!! LOVE YOU :D!!!!


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